Skin cleansing compositions are well known in the art and usually are used to clean the hands and arms of the user. Some skin cleansers are antibacterial in nature and are used to destroy microorganisms which might be present on a users hands. An example of such composition is disclosed in Taylor et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 6,616,922). However, most skin cleansing compositions are not very effective in removing heavy duty soils such as ink, grease, paint and the like from the hands. Also, a number of the compositions which are effective in removing such stubborn soils are not very mild to the skin and may cause irritation.
The prior art discloses hand cleansing compositions which are said to help in removing difficult soils. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,376,437 discloses a composition which is said to remove ink from the skin by incorporating a low molecular weight alcohol and a peroxide cleaning agent (i.e. sodium perborate) into the composition.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,441,666 discloses the incorporation of pumice into a composition to aid in the removal of soil from the hands. The composition also includes d-limonene, a C-11 alcohol ethoxylate as a detergent and an acrylic copolymer as an emulsifier.
Another heavy duty cleanser is described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,410,937 which discloses a composition which uses cornmeal as a scrubber. This is said to increase the cleansing efficiency by a mechanical effect. The composition also includes at least one ethoxylated fatty alcohol, an alkyl polyoxyethylene glycol, an alkanolamide and a polymeric quaternary ammonium salt.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,661,119 discloses a terpene based skin cleanser which includes up to 40% by weight of a terpene, a nonionic surfactant and cornmeal scrubbers.
Although not said to be a heavy duty hand cleanser, U.S. Pat. No. 6,846,785 discloses a liquid soap employing a base having an anionic surfactant, a chelating agent and an acrylic copolymer as a suspending agent. It is said that microcapsules are uniformly suspended in the liquid composition. The patent also discloses that such particles are usually suspended using Xanthan gum, although such a gum is not used in this particular soap composition.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,063,062 discloses a skin cleansing composition for removal of tar, adhesives and the like from the skin which employs from 5-60% by volume of orange oil, a moisturizer, and an oat grain derivative as an emulsifying agent.